Funded PhD Studentship 3-Year

Stipend: £13,726 pa stipend

Location: Liverpool

Ref: PHD-Studentship-ESRC-CASE-psycholgical-sciences-meyer

Closing date:  1 December 2013

Applications are invited for a fully funded ESRC CASE PhD Research Studentship starting in October 2013 or later. This 36 month Studentship is sponsored jointly by the ESRC and The Virtual Engineering Centre (VEC), Daresbury, in collaboration with Bentley.

The aim of this project is to develop metrics and methods for the objective evaluation of ‘presence’ afforded by multi-sensory VR environments. We will draw on the expertise of the Perception group at Liverpool, The Flight Simulation Laboratory in the Centre for Engineering Dynamics at Liverpool University and the Virtual Engineering Centre (VEC) at Daresbury, to develop efficient metrics that can be applied in academic and commercial settings.

Commercial VR applications in engineering visualisation and customer acceptability testing will be used as target applications to ensure that the metrics we develop are robust and efficient to implement. The involvement of a major international company and the VEC highlights not only the importance of the research and the potential impact that can be generated by cooperative work on fundamental research questions, it also will give the student an outstanding opportunity to work in an environment that combines academic and commercial research.

The stipend is at the standard ESRC rate (currently £13,726 pa tax free) plus an industrial contribution of £2k. Applicants will have at least an upper second class honours degree in psychology, engineering, computer science or a related subject. Good computational and mathematical skills or previous experience with experimental design and research techniques are desirable.

The studentship is open for UK citizens and EU citizens who have been resident in the UK for 3 years or more. A Masters-level qualification with a strong research methods component or equivalent experience is a requirement. Due to the requirement of the funders.

The student will have access to facilities at the University of Liverpool’s £5.3m Virtual Engineering Centre (VEC) project, part funded by the Northwest Regional Development Agency (NWDA) and the Northwest European Regional Development Fund (ERDF), situated at Daresbury (15 miles from Liverpool) and will work in close collaboration with other researchers working on the simulation and optimisation of engineering processes for industrial application, as well as researchers based at the Dept of Experimental Psychology.

Contact Dr Georg Meyer for more information: Department of Psychological Sciences, Eleanor Rathbone Building, The University of Liverpool, L69 7ZA. Email: georg@liverpool.ac.uk Tel: +44 151 794 2579

For more information and to submit an application, please use the ‘apply’ button below.